Kids,
We’ve heard the legends that the Mets used to let fans express their love for the team by holding signs aka “banners” and walking around the field.
I never believed these rumors, why would a team want to let fans connect with their brand at a personal level? However, these images made it to my iPad and as far as I can tell, they are legitimate.
Now these consumers of the New York Metropolitan Base Ball Product Designed To Sell Tickets, Concessions and Merchandise clearly are not part of a parade, but they did feel engaged enough with The Product to make a sign. Do you ever make homemade signs that say “McDonald’s Rules!”?
Here we have an image of what appears to be a parade. That ballpark could be the legendary “Polo Grounds”, the Atlantis of baseball where supposedly a team called “Giants” played. As we all know, that is myth and NYC housed two ball clubs between 1903 and 1957, one in the Bronx and one in Brooklyn. Why would New York have had a third team, don’t be silly. Tangent for another day.
This is interesting. It appears to be a Mets fan in a parade. His banner has a particularly strong anti-Dodgers sentiment. The Mets may have had different non-Wilpon ownership at the time, I will investigate further.
Finally, I leave you with this image and a question…
Why would The Product Designed To Sell want to make an emotional connection with a boy? What long term value proposition coukd that possibly have?
Do you think this kid grows up to write about the Mets 4 times a day, owns like 10 jerseys and force feeds his kids the Addiction To The Product?
My conclusion is that Banner Day never existed and these are all well done photoshops. Now shut up and buy tickets, concessions and merchandise.
banner day started at the polo grounds
\fans would display banners around the ball park causing fans to complain that they could not see the game.
they were then held between games of double headers.
the first winning banner read “to err is human, to forgive is a mets fans”.
i entered a banner day contest in 1973.
it was a mets-phillies double header
the first game lasted 19 innings
the contest started at mid night
the second game started at 1am !!